Joachim Müller-Lancé graduated with honors from the Basel School of Design in Switzerland and studied Fine Arts at Cooper Union in New York. He has been a senior designer at The Understanding Business and Barclays Global Investors in San Francisco, and in 1992 he designed cultural exhibitions and publications related to the Olympics in Barcelona. In 1993, he received the Gold Prize in the Morisawa Typeface Competition for his Lancé™ typeface family. In the 1999 Morisawa Competition, he received an honorable mention for Shirokuro Nishi / Higashi, his first kanji typeface.

Müller-Lancé is now principal of Kame Design Studio, where he focuses on graphic design, type design, cartooning and animation. He recently co-founded the new type design collaborative Typebox. He speaks on design topics internationally, and writes articles for design magazines in Japan, Belgium, Germany, and China.